


The (Happy) End

by AvaTaggart



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Gen, Happy Ending, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 22:55:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17252957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvaTaggart/pseuds/AvaTaggart
Summary: After discovering that his experience in Joey Drew Studios is an endless loop, Henry tries to find a way out of it. When that fails, he decides to make his own way out - one that has a happy ending for everyone.





	The (Happy) End

**Author's Note:**

> New year, new ending (or beginning?)  
> Been working on this since the release of chapter 5, pretty much. That infinite, inescapable loop left me feeling disappointed, so I found a way to break the loop myself.   
> Hope y'all enjoy! Part 2 will be up... eventually.   
> Have a great 2019!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to cherryistired on tumblr for reading this over and helping me improve it! This chapter is a lot better thanks to her help.

The world was white. Blinding, searing, flickering, tearing at Henry’s eyes the same as it had torn the Ink Demon’s form apart.

Henry blinked the light from his eyes, trying to get his bearings, to see whether the film had really destroyed Bendy once and for all.

In front of him was the entry hall of the Studio, looking just as it had when he’d first come here.    
After the Hell he'd just been through, after losing Boris, after defeating the Ink Demon, he was back at the start of this nightmare? How?  _ Why? _   
He bit down on the scream building at the back of his throat and clenched his hands into fists, trying to quell his anger. In his left hand, he felt the sharp bite of metal against his palm, and took a second look. His axe was long gone, but it seemed he'd kept his grip on the Seeing Tool through…  _ whatever _ had happened.   
He wasn't sure exactly how useful that would be, but it was something--proof that Henry's descent through the Studio hadn't been imagined, if nothing else.

He turned around to try the front door, first. It was locked. Henry sighed.  _ Of course _ he wouldn't be able to just walk away from the Studio this time. Whatever had happened, all he could do now was press on, try to find a different way out. 

Henry turned to face the hallway and switched on the Seeing Tool, hoping for some kind of guidance.   
The hallway lit up gold.   
An arrow, smeared on the floor, pointed towards the front door. A warning not to turn on the Machine fenced off the end of the hall. Hundreds and hundreds of tally marks lined the walls.

Henry gently ran his hand over the wall. It felt rough, like normal wood, without the smoother gloss of ink painted over it. Without the Seeing Tool, he’d never have guessed the messages were there.

His grip on the tool tightened. If he was going through this again, these messages might just be the difference between reliving his mistakes and finishing things for good.

* * *

He’d tried. Dammit, he’d tried so hard.

He’d still turned on the Machine, in the end; it was all he  _ could _ do. He'd opened every door, explored every nook and cranny, done everything else he could before performing the ritual. He’d fallen, again, despite trying to jump over the section of floor that had collapsed before. Sammy had knocked him out before he could take the stairs. Alice had taken Boris, and Henry hadn’t been able to save him. He’d faced the Ink Demon alone, played “The End”, and now stood in the entryway to the Studio. Again.

The hidden messages he saw through the Seeing Tool hadn't told him much he didn't already know. There were no clues to another exit, no maps to help him navigate the Studio, no helpful advice for avoiding even one of the awful twists of fate he faced.

There had to be something he hadn’t tried yet, something he’d just been missing. Somewhere, somehow, there was some way to break out of this never-ending hell. 

But Henry was doubting that he’d ever find it.

* * *

_ I always fall _

_ I don’t sing with psychos _

_ I’m sorry, buddy _

_ That’s the Joey I know _

At first, Henry wasn’t sure who the “I” was, who had written these messages on the walls. An employee lucky enough to escape? Some supernatural force? One of Joey’s “gods”? The more times he read them, the more he thought it might be  _ him _ . He didn’t remember writing them, but the words sounded familiar. They were the things he would have said, if he found the nerve.

How had he done it? How had he written them so he could find them on the next loop? How had he figured out the Seeing Tool?

How had he forgotten?

* * *

“You’re the one who paints the walls?” Henry asked, for the hundredth time. The nicer Alice paused from painting out the same thing she always did. These times were good. He was safe and had some time to draw, even if Tom had it out for him. If Boris was here, or if Tom and the Alice--who Henry was pretty sure might have been Allison Pendle once--were at the safe house, he might have been able to stay. To wait out the loop, let Bendy wreak havoc, instead of seeking an escape that would never come.

But there was never any respite like that in the Studio. There was always someone for Henry to save, someone he needed to help, something he needed to fix.

“We all do,” Alice said, as she always did, and she turned back to her drawing. Henry looked down at his own page, where he’d sketched the exit to the Studio open wide, sunlight streaming in, Boris waiting for him outside, alive again.

He wanted that. He wanted that to happen so badly. He wanted to save the others, he wanted to free them from the Studio, wanted to live up to being the Hope that Allison needed.

He just had to keep trying.

* * *

The next loop, Henry picked up the first inkpot and brush he found, and he painted on the walls for the first time he could remember.

_ I will set us free, _ he wrote on the Exit door. It was a bigger promise than he could reasonably uphold, but Joey wasn’t the only one with the determination to make his dreams a reality. Henry seemed to be stuck here, anyway; it wasn’t like he had the choice to just walk away from this. He would keep trying to free the Studio, no matter how many times it killed him. 

* * *

The messages he wrote on the walls stayed there, loop after loop. After a reset, the regular black ink was gone, but what he wrote appeared as glowing hidden messages he could make out with the Seeing Tool.

He hadn’t figured out much that hadn’t already been written, but it was a small relief that if for some reason he forgot again, he’d have these notes to work off of once he got the Seeing Tool back.

It meant he could plan, using sparse calm moments to scribble down his ideas on how to escape the loop wherever he found space. 

Not that he really had many calm moments.

Henry had broken everything he could break, looked everywhere he could look, made his way into everywhere he could get to, and he hadn't found an exit. He'd tried sparing monsters and talking down toons and gotten nothing but death for his efforts.

He scribbled pictures across walls and floors and slips of paper. Boris, revived and in one piece again. Allison remembering her name, who she had been. Tom, able to speak again. Sammy and the Lost Ones with the ink melting off them, revealing their human forms underneath, freed from their prisons at last. The Ink Demon, melting and reforming, becoming the Bendy Henry knew, the one he had created and loved. It was how he wanted things to end, here. It was everything he was working towards.

He hadn’t had much luck with the other things he’d tried, but drawing? He could do that. He knew he could do that.

The reel that he played to end the loop, to kill the Ink Demon, was something that Joey had made. Maybe that was why Henry kept coming back. Maybe it was the person who had first created all these characters that had to end them--the right way.

With a little searching, Henry found an empty reel of film in the closet by the viewing room on the first floor. He pulled it out of its protective case and stretched a length of film out, examining it. It was intact; with the case on, no ink had stained the film inside. 

This really wasn’t how it was supposed to be done, he knew, but it wasn’t like he had many options.

Henry fetched a pen and started drawing.

* * *

Henry died, and died, and died. He was drowned by Searchers, beaten to a pulp by the Butcher Gang, torn apart by the Projectionist, and of course, suffocated by Bendy. Now that he knew what lay underneath the demon’s almost-toony exterior, his aura only seemed more threatening.

But Henry came back, coughing up ink as his body reformed from the darkness. He always came back. 

* * *

He didn’t know how many loops it took to finish the reel. He’d tried keeping track, for a while, but he quickly gave up. The time it took to track loops was better spent actually trying to finish the animation.

Henry had been a speedy artist, in his heyday. You had to be, when an entire animation studio relied on you meeting the deadlines. It turned out fear for your life brought a certain speed to it, too. Still, drawing everything he wanted to took a lot of time, and drawing on the tiny frames of the film reel was infinitely harder than drawing on the large animation slides he was used to.

It wasn’t like he had a lot of options, though.

He kept the reel on him, tucked into its protective case and strung over his shoulder with a bit of rope. He tried to keep it above the ink when he was forced to wade, to keep it dry and safe. A few of the sections had gotten splattered, but nothing had been totally blacked out. Because he held it, the ink on it stayed through the resets, like the Seeing Tool stayed in his hand. 

Sometimes he would only manage to draw a few frames in a loop. Sometimes he would get an entire scene done. Most of the time, it was a few seconds of animation, dozens and dozens of frames that he knew would fly by so fast. Loop by loop, slowly but surely, he worked through the script he had written piecewise on the walls of the Studio, until one day the reel was finally done. 

Henry wished there was a projector handy. He’d just drawn the last frame locked in his cell in Allison and Tom’s safehouse, and he was itching to see if the reel would play okay. If it stuttered, or smeared, or the frame rate was off, he wouldn’t have another chance to fix it in this loop.

But no projector was handy, and he wouldn’t find another one until he reached the Ink Machine, until he was in the Ink Demon’s lair.

Instead, he rewound the reel and stuffed it into its protective case, strapping it to his back, where it would be safe until he reached Bendy’s Lair.

It was time to end this, for good.

* * *

This time, Henry didn't waste time playing Joey’s audio tape or reaching for The End that Joey had made. Instead, he pulled his own reel out of its case and inserted it into the projector.

Behind the chair, the Ink Demon tilted his head, seemingly confused. Then the cartoon started, and his attention was captured.

Henry turned to watch, too, eager to see how it had turned out despite the grim atmosphere it was playing in.

The short started with the Ink Machine chugging away, only to wind to a stop. Short flashes showed that pipes stopped spewing ink, that the ink rivers began to drain away, until only puddles were left.

From the puddles came the Lost Ones and the Searchers, pulling themselves out of the ink as they usually did. In the cartoon, though, the ink melted off of them almost as soon as they were free of the puddles, leaving behind humans--the people they'd once been.

Sammy Lawrence pulled himself out of the ink, distinguished by his overalls if not his mask, and fell to his knees as the ink melted off of him, staring at his once-again-human hands in disbelief. Norman Polk and Grant Cohen reformed from the ink, minds and bodies alike intact, and every other employee Henry knew to worry about followed suit. 

Henry wasn't sure what had happened to Susie’s body, so he assumed it had melted back into the ink. Susie burst out of the ink like the others, looking disoriented but unmistakably human. Behind her, the ink bubbled, and Alice Angel emerged, on-model and perfect.

In the Haunted House, the puddle left where Boris had died bubbled before Boris himself emerged, once again alive and whole, the bone Henry had given him still held carefully between his teeth. Behind him, Wally Franks pushed out of the ink, coughing. 

The cartoon finally zoomed in on Allison and Tom. As they stood, nervously waiting outside the entrance to the Ink Machine, the ink melted off of them, leaving behind Allison Pendle and Thomas Connor -- the people they'd been before the ink, as best as Henry could figure. 

Humans and toons alike wandered the Studio, finding the stairwells flooded and the elevator crashed. Before they fell into despair, they noticed something new. Spanning from the lowest levels of the Studio to the top was a twisting spiral staircase, sturdy enough to hold the entire population of the Studio as they started climbing it. 

The first people to make it to the staircase soon reached the first floor, which had been drained of ink and repaired. The floor was intact, and the exit to the Studio was open. Newly-human employees stepped through it, seeing sunlight for the first time in decades.

They were coming to the last scene, the one Henry had second-guessed and doubted and reconsidered loop after loop. That was why he had left it for last; he couldn't decide whether to draw it at all.

On the reel, the Ink Demon loomed over the back of the Ink Machine’s twisted throne, but with each passing second, he seemed to be melting, until he could no longer be seen behind the chair. There was a moment’s pause, and then Bendy walked out from behind the chair--the  _ real _ Bendy, the sweet little toon Henry had drawn so many years ago. He beamed at the camera and took a little bow before skipping towards the exit of the Ink Machine, headed for the stairs upwards with the rest of the Studio.

The screen changed to a much shakier ‘The End’, handwritten by Henry on each frame in messy, oversized letters, and then the reel ran out, the projector flickering a blank screen.

Henry held his breath, waiting for the Ink Demon to attack, waiting for the world to fade to white and leave him standing in the entrance to the Studio yet again. 

But it didn't.

_ Had it worked? _

“Henry?” came a soft voice from behind Henry’s back. A voice Henry hadn’t heard in thirty years.

Henry whipped around to see a perfectly on-model Bendy peering curiously at him, standing on tiptoes to see over the armrest.

“Bendy?” Henry asked, incredulous. Bendy laughed half-heartedly, ducking down behind the armrest as if he regretted speaking. Henry was off the chair and by his side in a second, sweeping the nervous toon into a hug.

“Bendy, are you alright? Where did you come from?” Henry asked, eyes sweeping the room for signs of the Ink Demon. He didn't have a weapon, but like hell was he going to risk losing Bendy when he'd only just found him. 

Bendy laughed again, the sound so hollow it was almost unrecognizable as laughter.

“I thought  _ you'd _ know,” he said, shuffling against Henry’s shoulder like he wasn't sure if he should hug him back or push away. 

In all Henry's loops through the Studio, he'd never seen an on-model Bendy walking around the place, only in cartoons…. Cartoons…

“Did-did the ending reel do it?” Henry asked.

“Think so,” Bendy said into Henry's shoulder. “It's never happened before I saw it.”

Henry’s mind had several different thoughts all at once.  _ Bendy remembered the loops. Bendy used to be the Ink Demon. The toon he was right now cradling against his shoulder had tried to kill him hundreds of times, and sometimes even succeeded. He was dangerous. _

He was crying.

Bendy was almost silent, but Henry could feel the toon’s hot tears dripping down his own back, his body gently shaking against Henry’s shoulder.

Without a second thought, Henry clutched Bendy tightly against him in a crushing hug. When the toon’s crying seemed to have evened out a bit, Henry pulled away to look him in the eyes.

Bendy tried to look away as he wiped away the enormous, cartoon tears from his eyes, but Henry wasn't about to let that slide. He used a hand to lift Bendy’s chin so that the toon had no choice but to look him in the eye.

“Bendy, what's wrong?” Henry asked. Bendy sniffled for a moment before answering.

“I-I’ve been real bad! I did a lotta bad things and I hurt a lotta people and everyone hates me and they're right to hate me! I've been a terrible monster this whole time. You should have killed me like you usually do. Why didn't you just kill me, Henry?”

“Whoah, whoah, calm down, buddy,” Henry said, trying to soothe the toon, who was now full-on sobbing. “Nobody hates you--well, maybe some people, but not everybody. They're just scared of you.”

“Th-that's even worse!” Bendy said. “I was always the scaredy cat in the cartoons, I shouldn't be the one scarin’ other people!”

“I know, Bendy, I know,” Henry said, rubbing a hand over Bendy’s head the way he used to run his hands over his daughter Betty’s hair when she was upset as a child. It worked well enough to get Bendy to go from bawling to sniffling, and he curled into Henry’s touch. Henry couldn't help but smile. All the loops, all the dark magic and impossible things, and he'd still never imagined he'd actually see Bendy-- _ his _ Bendy, real enough to touch.

“We just have to show them that there's nothing to be afraid of, anymore,” Henry said. “I'm not afraid of you, after all.”

“How do we do that?” Bendy asked, wiping the last tears from his eyes.

“Well, I have a few ideas,” Henry said, winking.

* * *

The moat outside the Ink Machine was slowly but surely draining, just like Henry had drawn in his ending. How much of what he'd drawn had carried over to real life?

He found his answer soon enough, when he spotted two human figures standing on the far shore where Allison and Tom had been.

“Henry!” Allison called out. Henry waved and hoisted Bendy up to sit on his shoulders.

“You got a good grip, buddy?” Henry asked the toon.

“Yep,” Bendy said. Henry set out across the moat.

As he got closer, Henry could make out Allison and Thomas’s faces--and their shocked looks. Neither of them said anything until he reached the opposite shore, though they were whispering to each other.

“Henry, what the hell is that?” Thomas asked, pointing to Bendy with his prosthetic arm. 

“It's Bendy,” Henry said, as if that explained everything. 

“I'd ask how that's possible, but it makes about as much sense as everything else that just happened,” Allison said. “What did you  _ do _ , Henry?”

“I made an ending,” he said. “A tape, that the Ink Machine played. I guess it had more of an effect than I thought.”

“You can say that again,” Thomas grunted, watching as the ink moat drained away, leaving only a black-stained pit. “What exactly was on that tape, besides making us human and making Bendy a toon?”

Henry opened his mouth to answer, then smiled.

“It'll be better if I show you,” he said. “Follow me.”

* * *

The staircase was just where he'd drawn it, with its base in the film vault. From there, it cut upwards through the other floors of the Studio, pitch-black steps and railing spiraling farther than they could see.

“Probably should have made it an elevator, in retrospect,” Henry said, feeling sheepish. “The staircase was more symbolic, though.”

“Henry, it's a way up. A way we don't have to claw out ourselves. Don't apologize for that,” Allison said. Thomas inspected the staircase, like he was trying to tell if it would hold their weight. He grabbed the railing and tugged it, then shoved it, but it stayed firm. The staircase didn't so much as wobble.

“It's a safer way up than anything else I know of,” Thomas said. “Better start climbing.”

So they did. 

It took a while to make their way up, but the higher they climbed, the more people joined them. Former Lost Ones and Searchers, now human once again, found their footing and their way up the stairs. Some of them flinched at the sight of Bendy, still sitting atop Henry’s shoulders, but once Henry shot them a look they seemed to get over it well enough to be on the same staircase, at least. More worrisome were the few that still seemed to worship Bendy, but Thomas and Allison still carried their weapons and were more than capable of scaring the cultists away.

They stopped to take a break at what was probably about halfway to the top. Bendy climbed off Henry’s shoulders to give the man a rest. Henry was stretching out his shoulders when he heard a pair of feet break into a run behind him. He flailed for a weapon on instinct, and whirled to face his opponent, only to see--

“Boris!” Henry cried as the toon reached him and swept him into a hug. He'd bet money that if he'd given the wolf a tail, he'd be wagging it. 

“I missed you, buddy,” Henry said, tears building in the corners of his eyes. Boris had done so much for him, but he'd never been able to save the wolf before. But now! Now, Boris was alive and whole and safe. They were going to leave together.

“Boris?” Bendy asked as Henry finally pulled out of the hug. Boris tilted his head quizzically, inspecting Bendy like he wasn't sure what to make of him. The smaller toon fidgeted nervously, refusing to make eye contact.

Bendy and Boris had been foils in the cartoons, and had gotten along even worse in real life. Henry winced at the thought of how this was going to go down.

Boris walked over to Bendy, calm as anything, and gently patted him on the head. Bendy smiled hesitantly, and Henry let out a sigh of relief.

“You guys ready to finish climbing?” he asked the group of toons and humans alike that had gathered around him. “I’m ready to leave this place for good.”

* * *

It was unreal to see the exit door open--not just a crack, like it was just before he had plummeted through the floor, but thrown wide open. The exit hallway had been repaired by The End, and there were already dozens of former employees loitering outside, staring in awe at the sunlight (so bright!) and the grass (there were colors other than yellow!) and the sky (so much higher than the ceiling!).

Boris ran past Henry and made straight for the grass, rolling around in it just like a normal dog. Henry caught a hold of Bendy before he could follow and startle the employees outside, scooping the smaller toon up in his arms and carrying him out. Allison and Thomas followed close behind, and Henry just caught the sound of Allison’s soft gasp at the sight of the outdoors.

At least half the Studio was out here now, milling about on the grass, talking to each other. Most of them kept their distance from Bendy, and Henry by extension, but they could work with that. It kept them from having to force their way through a crowd to move, at least.

“Well, this is something I never thought I’d see again,” Thomas said. “Figured we’d be stuck in the Studio forever.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have been so quick to doubt Henry,” Allison teased. “But what comes now?”

“I, uh,” Henry started. “I’m not really sure? I wasn’t expecting to get this far, honestly.”

Now that he was surrounded by the Studio’s former employees, it was starting to hit Henry what exactly he’d done. He wouldn’t take it back, not in a million iterations of the damned loop, but now he was pretty much in the middle of nowhere with three hundred people, not to mention three living toons. He was pretty sure that drawing another cartoon wasn’t going to solve this, and there was no way he and Linda could take care of all these people—

_ Linda! _

“I’m going to see if there’s a phone that works,” Henry said, venturing back inside against the flow of employees still making their way out. Allison and Thomas looked doubtful, but they didn’t try to stop him.

There was a phone a floor down, in some sort of receptionist’s area, but when Henry picked it up, he heard nothing, not even a dial tone. It was the same with the phone two floors down, and another he found tucked in a closet.

“None of them are gonna work,” Bendy said. He’d been content just to watch from his perch once again on Henry’s shoulders while the animator searched the few top floors, but spoke up as Henry approached the stairs to try another floor.

“Joey wasn’t payin’ the phone bill, y’know,” Bendy said. “They got shut off before the Studio even closed.”

“Great,” Henry said. “Linda’s gonna kill me for showing up with company unannounced.”

“Linda?” Bendy asked.

“My wife,” Henry said, starting the climb back up to ground level. “She’s wonderful, but she doesn’t exactly like surprises.”

And, well, surprise was probably a rather mild word for showing up drenched in ink with living toons and whoever else he could fit in his car in tow.

Back outside, Henry’s disappointment must have shown on his face. Thomas snickered at the sight of him and even Allison couldn’t help but smirk. 

“No luck?” she asked. Henry gave her the most deadpan stare he could manage.

“Sorry, sorry,” she said, still sounding a bit giggly. “Any idea what we’re going to do now, though?”

“I’ve got my car,” Henry sighed. “I can take you two and the toons, maybe a couple more people, but I can’t get everyone back to town like that in any reasonable amount of time. Even if I did, these people don’t have any place to go, do they?”

Thomas shook his head no.

“So they’re probably going to have to stay at the Studio for a while,” Henry said. “I can’t imagine anyone is going to want to hear that.”

“No, probably not,” Allison said, and they were all quiet for a minute, trying to find another solution.

Henry’s eyes scanned the crowd as he thought, and he spotted a smaller figure making their way through the crowd to get closer. Henry braced for an attack until he saw none other than Alice Angel break out of the crowd. She was somewhere between Bendy's height and Boris’s, with similar toony proportions and pie-cut eyes. Her halo hovered a few inches above her head, softly glowing.

“Henry!” she cried out, running towards him like he was an old friend, even though he'd never met her before.

She stopped just short of hugging him, looking a little uneasy when she saw Bendy in his arms, but it was probably for the best. Henry was overwhelmed enough already.

Susie trailed desperately behind Alice, trying to catch up. 

“Henry,” she said when she caught sight of him. “You're still alive.”

“You're not going to do anything to change that, I hope,” Henry said. On the edges of his vision, he saw Allison grab the handle of her sword, ready to pull it from its sheath at a moment’s notice. 

“No, no,” she said. “I'm sorry about that, really. The Ink, it… did things to my head.”

Thomas huffed like he wanted to argue, but didn’t actually say anything. Henry was thankful for that. The last thing they needed now was for everyone to go right back to being at each other’s throats.

“You’re the reason everyone’s human again, aren’t you?” Susie asked. “The reason the toons are on-model, and we were able to get out.”

Henry nodded, not wanting to explain it all to the voice actress he still didn’t entirely trust.

“Thank you,” Susie said, sounding like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. “I can’t thank you enough, Henry. The Studio was… well, you saw how bad it got.”

“Well, I sure saw  _ something _ ,” Henry said, not entirely sure how to respond. Alice giggled at that, thought Henry wasn’t sure what about it was funny.

“What now?” Susie asked. 

“That’s what everyone seems to be asking,” Henry said. “Honestly? I’m not sure. I think it’s time for me to ask everyone else, for a change.”

He wasn't Joey; he wasn't going to force anyone to conform to his idea of what the story would be. Let them make their own decisions, build their own future, for once.

* * *

“You really expect us to stay here?”

“Ya havta admit, it makes sense.”

“There is no threat or promise on this Earth that would get me to set foot back inside that cursed Studio!”

“Well where else do you expect to go, you big baby?”

The discussion about what the Studio’s employees should do was…  _ heated _ , to say the least. The crowd was split between two mindsets. Both agreed that staying at the Studio was awful, but one argued that it made the most sense in the short term, while the other refused to entertain the notion. The group willing to stay was larger, headed by Lacie Benton and composed mostly of the former Searchers and Lost Ones who hadn’t been bothered much. The group who refused to reenter, while smaller, was undeniably  _ louder _ , led by Bertrum Piedmont and Sammy Lawrence, composed of most of Sammy’s congregation and the former toons that “Alice” had hacked to pieces.

Interestingly enough, Wally wasn’t among them. “If you guys are just gonna argue with each other, I’m outta here!” he said. Instead of joining the debate, he seemed content to lie down on the grass with his hat over his eyes and take a nap.

Susie waited nervously by Henry, holding Alice’s hand like a lifeline, while Allison and Thomas tried to referee the chaos. Henry felt like he should go help them, but in the eyes of the employees, he’d only been at the Studio for a few days; there was no way he could understand what it was like to be trapped there for decades. Instead, he stood at the sidelines with Bendy on his shoulders, waiting to hear whatever plan they would come up with.

“I’m the reason they all want to leave so badly,” Susie said, so quiet that Henry doubted if she had really spoken until she continued. “All the horrible things I did, to so many of them… it’s no wonder they don’t want to go back.”

Henry opened his mouth to reassure her, but Bendy spoke before he could.

“Pretty sure that’s my fault, toots,” he said. “You chopped some people up real good, sure, but I terrorized the whole place.”

“If it wasn’t for me, Susie wouldn’t have been trying to make herself perfect at all,” Alice says, her voice barely a whisper.

“That’s enough,” Henry said. “I’m not going to stand here and listen to you three argue over who’s to blame for all this. We already know who it is, and it’s not any of you. It’s Joey. He’s the one who built the Ink Machine, he’s the one who started turning people into Ink, and he’s the reason the Studio got so bad in the first place. You may not have acted appropriately, but you sure as hell aren’t to blame for this whole mess.”

Henry bit down the urge to blame himself for all this, too. The Studio had gotten this bad  _ in his absence, because he wasn’t here to stop it _ —because Joey had made it that way.

Henry was a lot of things, but he refused to be a hypocrite.

* * *

In the end, most of the employees had been convinced to stay, at least for a few days. Those willing to reenter the Studio would shelter inside, and the few adamant about never returning would be camping out in the yard around the Studio. Surprisingly, Sammy agreed to stay in the Studio. His congregation had convinced him to return to the towns and shrines they had built inside, and he seemed eager to start dismantling the Bendy-centric religion he had been so central to.

The majority of the Studio’s residents were left with the promise that Henry would return as soon as he could to begin transporting people to the nearest city. The chosen few leaving that night were Henry himself, the toons, Thomas and Allison, and Susie. The last one was something of a surprise even to Henry, but even though Susie and Alice had their own bodies now, they were still inseparable, and Henry didn’t want to leave either of them behind, where they might face violence from the others at the Studio. Ink-caused insanity or not, they had hurt a lot of people, and neither was exactly welcome at the moment.

Henry’s car technically only had enough seats for himself, the toons, and one other person, but Susie was able to sit Alice on her lap, and Henry managed Bendy on his, freeing up room for Allison and Thomas to accompany them on the first trip away from the Studio. It probably worked out better this way, since Bendy seemed calmer when he was near Henry, so he wasn't causing trouble in the backseat for the drive.

Henry just hoped they didn't get pulled over. He had no idea how he'd explain this scene to the police.

It took about an hour to arrive at Henry’s house, and Henry winced at the sight of the living room light on against the growing twilight. Linda was still up, then. Henry wished for the dozenth time that he could have called ahead and warned her; this wasn’t going to be pretty.

“I'll go up to the door myself and explain, first,” he told the others in the car. Bendy pouted a little but didn't argue. Thomas grumbled from his position in the backseat, where Boris had fallen asleep and rested his head on the former wolf, but Allison gave Henry an encouraging smile.

Linda answered the door before Henry’s finger even left the doorbell. She looked absolutely furious, but Henry was still relieved to see her. 

“Henry Jonathan Stein, where have you been?” she demanded. Henry was sweeping her into a hug before he could think otherwise.

“Hell,” he said. “I've been in hell, Linda, but now I'm back.”

“I-I thought you were going to the Studio,” Linda said, her fury overtaken by uncertainty, not sure how to react to what he was saying. “It's been a week, Henry. I thought you weren't going to come back.”

“I will always come back to you,” Henry said. “Even if I have to move heaven and earth to do it.”

And it was true. He’d already done the impossible to make it back here; he would do it again.

Linda laughed, pushing out of his hug and swatting his shoulder. 

“Enough of that mush!” she said, though her eyes were still smiling. “Now tell me what on earth happened to you. And come in, before the house has more mosquitoes than air.”

“Before I come in, I uh, brought some people here with me,” Henry said. “They don't have anyplace else to go, Linda.”

“Henry, you bleeding heart fool. How long did you tell these people they could stay?”

“Well, uh, we haven't really discussed that yet. Not long, for some of them, but the others… it's probably better if you meet them.”

Linda narrowed her eyes, suspicious.

“I swear, if you've brought back another stray dog,” she threatened, and Henry laughed nervously, making his way back to the car.

“Linda’s ready to meet everyone,” Henry said, leaning inside the car and picking Bendy up. Thomas nudged Boris awake, and the wolf yawned. Everyone shuffled out of the car, Susie taking Alice’s hand like a small child’s and Thomas and Allison standing near the front to shield Boris and Alice from a potentially hostile reaction. 

As they made their way back to the still-open door to Henry's house, Henry could see Linda standing in the doorway, pure shock plain on her face. Henry hadn't seen her look so surprised since he'd proposed, honestly.

“Ta-da,” he said, smiling weakly.

“Henry. This is the last time I let you go anywhere without me,” Linda said.

* * *

There was a lot to explain. Everyone else helped, telling what they knew, filling in pieces the others had left out, but there was still so much to tell. It felt like he’d be explaining this for the rest of his life, trying to make sense of it. Even once Henry and Linda had retired to their room for the night, the explanation kept tumbling from Henry’s mouth, the things he hadn’t wanted to say in front of the others: the loop, repeating time, making the tape to change the ending.

Linda was probably the strongest person Henry knew. It was the first time in years he'd seen her cry.

“How long?” she asked. “Here I've been bemoaning a week without you; how long was it for you?”

Henry tried to do the math and promptly gave up.

“There were at least three hundred tally marks, by the time I left. Probably more loops than that. I can't remember them all.”

“Each loop a week, three hundred loops… it's been years,” Linda said. 

“Yeah,” Henry said. “But it’s over now. I’m back.”

Linda smiled, and god, how he’d missed her smile. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed her, how much he’d missed his home, how much he’d missed the world outside the Studio until he was out. 

But he  _ was _ out now, and he was going to take full advantage of all that entailed.

Like getting a full night’s sleep on an actual bed.

* * *

When Henry first woke up, he expected to find himself in a cot, for his first sight to be a ticking Bendy clock or the wooden bars of his cell. That was how it had always been, for days and weeks, loop after loop. It was routine, at this point.

Instead, he was on a real bed, soft underneath him and with clean sheets over him. Beside him was warmth, and he turned to see Linda, still asleep, her face relaxed out of the worried expression she’d had last night.

He brushed his lips over her forehead, leaving a kiss gentle enough not to wake her, and got out of bed. He had to check on the rest of them, too.

He padded to the living room, where the three human employees were sleeping: Allison on the couch, Susie and Thomas on comforters on the floor, just where he'd left them. He edged around them and cracked open the door to Betty’s old room, poking his head inside. The toons were passed out in a pile of blankets and pillows. They’d started the night fairly spread out, Bendy and Alice on the bunk beds and Boris stretched out on the floor, but it seemed at some point Bendy and Alice had left their beds and they'd formed some sort of puppy pile together. Henry couldn't help but smile at the sight. 

It was real. This was all real. He'd gotten out of the loop, gotten everyone else out with him, and they were alive and here and  _ safe _ .

He leaned against the doorframe, careful not to make enough noise to wake anyone. He’d been fighting for so long: to survive, to escape the Studio, to save everyone. Now he’d done it, and he didn’t have to fight anymore. It was something of a shock to the system.

He decided to get breakfast ready for everyone else while he was up anyway, and started quietly moving around the kitchen. Eggs, and toast, and pancakes, and fresh fruit--Henry could practically cry at the thought of it. He skipped the bacon for once. 

Bendy was the first one to wake up, pushing open the door to Betty’s room and making his way to the kitchen almost silently.

“Hey Bendy,” Henry said softly. “Up already?”

Bendy nodded. 

“Heard you up,” Bendy said, sitting down in a corner of the kitchen where Henry wouldn't step on him by accident to watch. He didn't want to be alone, it seemed. That was fine. Henry could use the company, too.

Linda woke up next, early riser that she was. She promptly scolded him for exerting himself after the ordeal he’d been through, joining him in the kitchen once he seemed appropriately remorseful. She managed to make stepping around Bendy seem like second nature as she started cutting up strawberries.

The other toons woke next, rubbing sleep from their eyes as they made their way into the kitchen. Boris bumped into the sofa and managed to wake Allison, who sprang to attention like she was ready to fight for her life before realizing where she was. Susie woke up not long after that and everyone gave up on trying to be quiet. Thomas slept on, seemingly oblivious to the noise and movement around him as everyone tried to start their day.

“I think he's used to wolf senses--er, toon wolf senses, anyway,” Allison explained. “This is pretty quiet compared to what he's used to hearing.”

Once Henry finished cooking and he and Linda carried the food to the table, Allison finally shook Thomas awake, dodging the resulting blind punch from his prosthetic arm like she'd done it a hundred times.

“We startle easy,” she explained as Linda looked on in shock while Thomas, unphased, pushed himself to a sitting position. 

They all managed to squeeze around the dining room table, though they ran out of chairs, so Bendy was sitting on the animator’s stool from Henry’s study. It probably worked out better that way, considering how short he was. Alice and Susie sat next to each other, and Henry wondered if it was his place to say something about how codependent the two seemed to be. Susie and Alice had been in a relationship that was anything but healthy before Henry had separated them; the last thing he wanted was for them to fall back into old habits.

That wasn’t something to worry about right now, though. There was something far more important: real, not-bacon-soup  _ food _ .

* * *

After breakfast was finished, while Allison and Thomas were washing the dishes and Susie was keeping an eye on the toons, Linda pulled Henry aside.

“What are we going to do with these people, Henry?” she asked him. “They seem lovely, but they can’t just… live on our sofa forever.”

Henry nodded.

“I...I don’t think the Toons should go anywhere,” he said. “They’ve already been taken advantage of once, and I don’t know how people are going to react to them.”

“They seemed to do well enough in Betty’s room,” Linda said. “They could probably stay there, if she’s ok with it. But the others… it’s not just Susie and Thomas and Allison we have to worry about, is it? The others at the Studio—you want to help them too, don’t you?”

Henry nodded again. He had wanted to talk about the other employees, but Linda got to it before he could.

Linda sighed and started muttering, counting out an inaudible list on her fingers. Henry rested a hand on her shoulder, getting her attention.

“Breathe, Lin,” he said. “We’ll figure this out, together.”

Linda’s smile was small, but genuine. She took a deep breath before continuing.

“And here I thought we were done getting baby birds out of the nest and onto their own two feet,” she said. 

“You were too good at it. Now you’re going to be stuck doing it forever,” Henry teased.

“They’ll need jobs, first,” Linda said. “Then apartments, probably; I can’t imagine they have the savings to buy a house anytime soon.”

Henry nodded along as Linda figured out what needed to be done and how best to do it, offering his take on things when she needed it. 

In the end, they managed to come up with a pretty solid plan to get the three people currently living in their house back into the rest of the world, which Henry figured was a solid start. They just had to get them on board with it, first.

“Well, I think that’s enough of that for today,” Linda said. “I’m going to see if I can find a change of clothes for anyone. Henry, you should really call Betty today. I’d say you’re a few years overdue, at this point.”

* * *

Henry waited until after Betty’s usual opening shift at the restaurant would be over to call her. Betty’s phone rang only once before she picked it up, and Henry winced. Usually it took her a few rings to get to the phone; if she was waiting right by it, it probably wasn’t a good sign. The worry clear in her voice when she spoke proved him right.

“Dad? Is that you?”

“Yep, it’s me,” Henry said.

“Mom said you were gone for a week with no word! Are you okay? What  _ happened _ ?”

“I’m fine, everything’s fine now. What happened is.. a bit of a long story.”

“I’d hope so, if you’re explaining away being gone for a week with no word to anyone. I was convinced you’d dropped off the face of the earth!”

“Sorry, Betty,” Henry said. “I promise I’ll tell you everything, just… it’d be better in person. When do you think you can make the trip over?”

“I’ve got the rest of today off, I can be over in a couple hours,” Betty said. “...is everything really alright? You sound… tired. More than usual.”

“I guess I am,” Henry chuckled. “But I’m all right now. Promise.”

“If you say so,” Betty said. “I’ll see you soon, then. And dad?”

“Yeah?”

“...I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Henry said. “More than you can ever know.”

* * *

Linda did, in fact, manage to dig up clothes for everyone to wear. By the time Betty came over that afternoon, the humans that had made it out of the Studio looked less like they’d spent the past couple of decades fighting for their life in an inky hellscape and more like they’d just had an especially bad night’s sleep.

Betty rang the doorbell at four pm, and everyone had already worked themselves into a bit of a panic over meeting her, especially the toons, who were hidden away in her old bedroom for now. If she seemed to be taking the news of the Studio well, they’d come down and meet her soon. If not, well… the last thing Henry wanted was to keep secrets from family, but he also wasn’t going to let anyone hurt the toons.

“Dad!” Betty cried, sweeping Henry into a hug the second he answered the door. “Geez, you look like shit.”

“Language,” Linda scolded, reaching around Betty to shut the front door.

“I do though, don’t I?” Henry said. There was only so much a good night’s sleep and a shower could fix, and years of misery was well beyond it. The ink stains and bruises might have been gone, but the underlying damage wasn’t.

“Sorry, it took me by surprise,” Betty said. “You’ve always been so tough; I can’t imagine what got you this bad.”

“That’s a long story,” Henry said, and cut Betty off before she could protest. “So we’d better sit down. Let’s go to the living room; there’s some people I want you to meet.”

Betty gave him a look that said  _ you’d better not be trying to distract me from getting an answer _ , but made her way to the living room all the same. Introducing Thomas and Allison and Susie went well enough, though Betty was visibly confused as to how they possibly fit into all this.

And then they told her everything. Like when he told Linda, the others helped with the details Henry missed and took over when he got too shaken to continue. It was harder than Henry had thought, to explain this again, to tell the story to his daughter. It had been one thing telling Linda, seeing her worry for him, but he hadn’t seen Betty this shaken since her cat had died when she was seven. Seeing his daughter in that state, knowing it was his fault she was feeling like this—it was almost as bad as dreading that he’d never escape the Studio. 

_ But it’s  _ not  _ my fault _ , Henry reminded himself.  _ It’s Joey’s. He’s the one that did all this. _

And he forced himself to push through it.

Betty was quiet for a minute, when they finished. Her eyes darted back and forth between Henry, Linda, and the former employees.

“Where are they?” she asked.

“Who, dear?” Linda asked.

“The toons,” Betty said. “Dad said they left the Studio too, right? I want to meet them.”

“They’re up in your room, actually,” Henry said. “I’ll go get them and--”

But Betty was already on her feet, making for the stairs. Thomas bristled as she passed him, lifting his arm to stop her, but Henry shook his head. The last thing they needed was for an argument to break out. Instead, he and the others followed after Betty as fast as they could manage, ready to step in if Betty’s reaction was less than positive. 

Henry made it upstairs in time to see Betty letting a baffled-looking Boris out of a hug. Alice peeked hopefully from the edge of the doorway, and Bendy sat on the floor, watching from a distance. 

“This is my daughter, Betty,” Henry said, introducing her to the toons. “And I know she’s already somewhat familiar with you three.” Betty grinned and held her arms out to Alice, who stepped forward to be swept into another hug. Henry could tell Susie was bristling behind him, but Alice seemed to enjoy it. 

Betty turned her sights to Bendy, next, but the devil flinched away from her like he was afraid he’d be burned. Instead, Betty knelt to be closer to eye level with the huddled toon and offered her hand for a handshake. After a moment’s hesitation, Bendy cautiously reached out with his own hand and shook hers.

“It’s really, really great to meet you,” she said to him. 

Though it was shaky and hesitant, Bendy smiled.

“You’re going to help the rest of them, aren’t you?” Betty asked Henry, turning to face him. “The others at the Studio.”

“Of course,” Henry said. Betty smiled like she had known before he answered. 

“I want to help,” Betty said. “Whatever I can do to help out, I want to do it.”

Henry smiled at that, and Linda elbowed him in the side, smirking. She’d always said that Betty had taken after him in the compassion department, after all.

Getting everyone out of the Studio and back into the real world was going to be tough. It seemed impossible, but with all of them working together, Henry had no doubt they’d be able to do it.

Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d done the impossible.


End file.
